When One Door Closes . . .

This has been a different summer for me. While many people's businesses see a winding down over the summer, I have not had that experience -- until this year, that is. You see, I had been planning to spend July in Hawaii and so other than teaching an online course, I did not make any efforts to book speaking engagements this summer. But as can sometimes happen, life threw us a curveball and the door on our Hawaii vacation slammed shut.

Now what? I wondered, "What am I going to do with all this free time on my hands?"

Yes, I had a few coaching clients who were glad to know I was going to be available for in-person sessions. Yet, I still had a lot of unbooked time, and I like being busy.

Then on June 29, I had coffee with my friend Chris Tieri, founder and president of Idea Agency. During our conversation, we got on the topic of getting done things we had been thinking about doing. I shared that I had been thinking about developing online courses based on programs I offer. Chris shared she had been thinking about writing a book. As I drove home from our get together, I started thinking about all the things I, or others have said, that they wanted to do, but were not getting done.

Two days later while in Syracuse, NY for a memorial service, I got together with my cousin Anne. I told her that I was serious thinking about developing online courses on Time Management, Resilience, and so forth. She was quite encouraging. Anne founded eKamria, a web development company, and so she had a lot of thoughts to share with me about online courses.

And then another, very different door opened. Literally. While sitting in the kitchen talking with Anne, my cousins Tony and Stephanie entered. They live in Georgia and we had not seen one another in twenty years. Long story short, they had purchased the family camp on Lake Oneida and were in town to check on the renovations. They were planning to be back in July for three weeks and wanted me to come up for a few days.

"Our kids we be there; Mary's coming in from Texas and Jamie will be around, too. You have to plan to come back."

Well, I certainly had the time to do so, and 6 weeks later I did just that. We found a hotel within 6 miles of the camp. Spent two days and evenings with family I hadn'€™t seen in decades, met many of their children for the very first time. We had a ball!

Anne came out both days too. While sitting by the lake, she asked about my plans for the online courses.

"Up and running," I said. She looked astonished. "Yup, after our talk back on June 1, I went home and researched online platforms. Settled on Thinkific, and launched the Time Management course two nights ago."

"Not only that," I told her, "I storyboarded the next online class, Resilience: The Key to Retirement Well-being and," I added proudly, "I scheduled the next Change Your Habitudes, Change Your Life workshop for October 28."

Anne was, to say the least impressed with all I had accomplished in the 6 weeks since our late night talk around the kitchen table.

"And," I said, "I am planning to launch another onground, six-week program called, Get It Done! It's for serious-minded people who have something they've always talked about doing, and now want to get it done."

Like the saying goes, "When one door closes, another one opens" and here'€™s the proof. The door on my long-awaited vacation in Hawaii may have slammed shut, but many opportunities opened -- spending time with family in New York, developing and putting into place two online courses, developing the Get It Done! 6-week program and scheduling the next Change Your Habitudes, Change Your Life workshop for October 28.

And it's only August 9. Plenty of summertime left!

How Taking One Small Step Can Change Your Life

Can taking one, small step really change your life? Proponents of kaizen think so. (And for the record, so do I.) Kaizen is a means of making great and lasting change through small, steady increments. Kaizen's practical roots are based in the Japanese management concept for incremental (gradual, continuous) change (improvement): breaking tasks into small, manageable steps.

However, kaizen is also a way of life philosophy based on making little changes on a regular basis; it's about finding new, creative, and effective ways to improve one's life... from tackling the mundane to managing our stress to attaining our life vision.

Case in point ... (Read more)

Just because everything is different...

"Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed." ~ Irene Peter

You know the scenario...You're in a job or a relationship where you are not happy, and so you leave. Then you take on a new job, fall head over heels into a new relationship, then at some point in the not so distant future, you find you are unhappy and you are looking to make (yet another) change.

Why does this happen? We have not changed core behaviors and beliefs, and so we keep approaching the different situations with the same behaviors. To successfully reach new and better outcomes we must be committed to the change process. Change is not easy; old habits die hard. Change is especially hard when a behavior or attitude is longstanding. Change requires:

• thinking differently
• acting differently
• commitment

Changing habits begins with recognition, followed by mindful awareness and intention to adjust your thoughts and behaviors until they become habits that serve you.

To adapt habits that make you flourish, you must learn how to manage and maintain balance in your life. You need to look at your past experiences and examine how you were able to successfully change some of your patterns of behavior or attitudes.

Changing habitual behavior is a process. Be patient and be compassionate with yourself. Each of us creates our own journey of releasing bad habits and adopting good habits through conscious choice. Embrace those choices; embrace the changes. They are the catalysts that will improve your life.

Have a joyful day everyone. And remember to live a flourishing life.
Rita
www.ritaschiano.com

To learn more about how you can live a flourishing life, please visit my web site, www.liveaflourishinglife.com.

Habits...

Aristotle proclaimed that there are two times in our lives when our character is shaped. The first is when we are children. At this time our habits and attitudes were shaped by our parents and our early teachers who taught us the best they knew how based on what they learned. These early attitude and habit formations were central to our character development; and sometimes those lessons were negative.

For Aristotle, a habit or hexis is a determinate power to act in a specific way. Habits can foster the good life by cultivating virtue and by developing the passions to feel pleasure and pain in right ways. Happiness is the "chief good" of human life and the most basic requirement of such a life is "activity of the soul in accordance with complete excellence." (Book I, Nichomachean Ethics)

To live a flourishing life you begin by uncovering habits that affect how you think and act. Many habits operate without your conscious awareness. Changing habits begins with recognition, followed by mindful awareness and intention to adjust your thoughts and behaviors until they become habits that serve you.

To adapt habits that make you flourish, you must learn how to manage and maintain balance in your life. You need to look at your past experiences and examine how you were able to successfully change some of your patterns of behavior or attitudes.

Changing habitual behavior is a process. Be patient and be compassionate with yourself. Each of us creates our own journey of releasing bad habits and adopting good habits through conscious choice. Embrace those choices; embrace the changes. They are the catalysts that will improve your life.

Have a joyful day everyone. And remember to live a flourishing life.
Rita
www.ritaschiano.com

To learn more about how you can live a flourishing life, please visit my web site, www.liveaflourishinglife.com.

*Excerpt from Live A Flourishing Life